Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You - <AUTHOR> http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers

<comment><USER2> Already discussed with 400+ comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6186730)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. HN usually notifies of duplicate submissions.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What router do you recommend for DD-WRT - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a high end AC+N Router (B/G would be nice as I have some older devices but worst case I run my older router just for them). I saw the new Linksys [0] router that generated a fair amount of buzz but it doesn't support DD-WRT (yet) and there is no guarantee that it will [1]. I'd love to hear what HN users are using.<p>[0] http://store.linksys.com/Linksys-WRT1900AC-Open-Source-Wireless-Router_stcVVproductId158014980VVcatId551966VVviewprod.htm<p>[1] http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/content/dd-wrt-linksys-wrt-1900ac <comment><USER2> buffalo. they have a high-spec one right now with dd-wrt preloaded. i've bought four of them now. my customers love them and i use one here</comment>


The Top Online Scams - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbb.org/top-online-scams/ <comment><USER2> Reminder that the BBB isn't a governmental or law enforcement agency and has no power or authority outside of civil litigation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting how now even BBB has hopped on the infographic train as a way to spread messages on the internets.

</comment><comment><USER4> How exactly is the release of someone's banking information stipulated when applying for a job?

</comment><comment><USER5> ...is the BBB really using rage faces?</comment>


Ask HN: How to stand out as a junior engineer - <AUTHOR> I graduated from an above average CS program in Boston, have stellar intern experience along with side projects on GitHub, but unfortunately my launch into the professional world didn't go as smooth as I would've liked.
I've had 1.2 years at a very risky startup but got to do really cool work and then 8mo. at a FAANG (joined a large 150person startup that had recently been acquired by said FAANG) but unfortunately my team was terminated for reasons out of my control.
I've been looking for work since October and unfortunately I feel completely backed into a corner.  I don't have a huge tenure anywhere above 1.2 years.  I'm not hugely experienced in any one thing.  Standouts are really just Go, Elixir and Vue knowledge.  I have references, but most of them are barred behind NDAs or from the first company I worked for where I didn't leave on the best terms because they were withholding salary.
I've had a handful of on-sites and made it through 2-3 rounds in 10-12 other interviews but just can't seem to get offers.  Being in the workforce has also lead to my leetcode skills suffering, something in college I usually made up for with stellar side projects.
I feel trapped and for the first time in my life really don't know how I should go about digging myself out of this.  I feel like I've picked the wrong career or that something is wrong with me - I sincerely appreciate any help or advice any of you are generous enough to offer. <comment><USER2> > I have references, but most of them are barred behind NDAs

You don't need to worry about this. Reference checks usually don't involve many detailed technical issues that would fall under an NDA.

> I feel like I've picked the wrong career or that something is wrong with me

I don't think that's the case.

First off, and you might not recognize this yet, but hiring is really slow during the holidays. Any time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day is basically completely dead. September and October are also particularly slow, as this is the start of school for families, which can be a tricky time to get someone to relo. Decision makers aren't in, people are on vacation, year end stuff abounds. People are fairly checked out, and it can be hard to get an interview panel together.

It will pick up in January with the new year. Hit the "Who's hiring" thread on HN and apply to a lot of places in short order.

As a (somewhat) successful employee with 15 years of experience, each place I've worked has had a story behind it, and they aren't at all alike. I've also bombed a fair amount of interviews that probably would have changed my life, like TwitchTV. It happens. It's a numbers game. You don't know if someone else better has applied. Or that the person has picked a topic that you know about or not. It just sucks particularly hard to feel that lack of control.

You sound like you're doing the right things. My leetcode is also terrible, and somehow for interviewing anyone it's all about leetcode BS these days. So if you can pull that off, I think you've got it. After all, you did it once. You can do it again.

To counter the feeling of a lack of control, I think you really need to take advantage of what you do have - time. And programming is cheap, and you can stay at home! Maybe work on those side projects. Brush up on leetcode, or learn some new skills that are marketable, hot, and maybe you're interested in. Even just doing a few tutorials can make you sound like a badass these days. Make the time productive, so you don't feel like you're doing nothing or feel helpless. Sometimes those actions can lead to new developments.

Do you think you did well in the interviews? What do you think went wrong? Nothing is a perfectly valid answer here. Managers don't have any more idea what they want than customers, so job descriptions might not line up with what they interview for. There might be some other applicant. If there is a point of weakness, work on that!

Good luck. You can do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> > I feel like I've picked the wrong career or that something is wrong with me > - I sincerely appreciate any help or advice any of you are generous enough > to offer.

The problem here is that the barrier to becoming a 'developer' these days is being lowered every week due to the millions of other 'developers' attending bootcamps or graduating from university just like yourself. CS is still a lucrative career option, its just that hiring managers can't deal with the same abundance of devs to choose from and will select those from their internal professional network or recommended by their own colleagues. This applies to everyone entering the field.

It's even harder for juniors and more difficult if you have little to no experience, thus resorting into doing the coding interview lottery (Which is deliberately rigged to waste your time). I don't see why someone like you with open-source contributions and with some experience still end up in this interviewing game. Perhaps with the background you have, you could create your own startup with some former colleagues to join, or obtain multiple referrals from current employees before applying. Both have varying degrees of risk and possibly have a 50:50 chance of going either way.

But if I saw a junior developer that created a profitable startup or side- project with several employees, it tells me that they're clever enough to apply their skills into practice, very quick to learn and they get lots of experience for free. That is a standout junior which I would bet on to easily train to become senior.

<comment><USER4> Not to sound negative but if a junior developer can create a profitable startup and hire several employees then why he/she would go to knock doors for a job? If I can have a profitable project then I can hire a senior dev full- time or part-time to mentor/teach me. Right?

<comment><USER5> As a junior developer trying to create a profitable startup - the answer is you typically need some capital to pay living expenses before your company takes off. This can be 6 months to a year (take minimum expenses in a medium cost of living city, maybe 20k for 12 months). If you're starting from a savings account of $2,000 after college you're going to need a get a junior job and save that $18,000. The other option is to seek funding, which is a great idea but not garunteed when you need a solid plan to pay rent in 2 months.

You're right - ideally if you can create a profitable startup there's no need to knock down doors for a job. That's the dream I'm chasing and I'm sure a lot of others are too.

<comment><USER3> > You're right - ideally if you can create a profitable startup there's no > need to knock down doors for a job.

Exactly with both you and the parent. This path saves you from spending your valuable time, skills and energy on leetcode/hackerrank puzzles just for a job and there's no need to do this or knock down doors for one if your startup is profitable.

I would rather create a startup with a solid business-model which requires limited funding that later pays itself (I know it is easier said than done) than to subject myself to frivolous whiteboard programming tasks that are never used in practice. But note that raising too much capital, trades in more control to VCs to decide the fate of your startup.

I find it worth the risk to carry on with working on a startup to bypass the interview games. So please keep going with your startup plans.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really comforting to hear. I've actually started and operated two unrelated businesses I used to fund my college expenses so I'm relatively well versed in the process of finding a problem / niche and developing around it.

To be frank, burning time doing leetcode makes me hate coding because I don't find it interesting or a decent use of time (outside of building up a stupid toy skill to pass interviews).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Hit leetcode hard

2\. Increase your applications. You should be applying all day, at least get hundreds of apps.

3\. Improve your resume, have a friend look at it. Consider leaving off your 8mos stint. May be making you look like a poor performer. Instead you could describe the time since then as spent on your side projects.

4\. Reach out to your personal connections about potential roles. These are most valuable especially since you had some bad luck that doesn't make your resume look so great. If you don't have good connections, you should look to improve that at your next job, but try tech meetups in your area. Read one of those networking for programmers books.

Lastly, be confident. You may not have a ton of experience in one technology, but I'm sure you're a fast learner. Experience as a junior is a bit overrated. Stop going into interviews with the hope they'll give something to you, and start going in with the question of what they can provide for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd leave the FAANG stint out, but I was working full time during those months I was employed and didn't really have much time on the side to work on side- projects. Wouldn't it be worse to have a year long work gap without too much completed code on Github from that time to back it up?

I've been waiting to get things going full-speed again in January since December is a bum hiring month.

<comment><USER6> I'm not super knowledgeable on this, but like the other commenter said, if you can't define the gap it's not great. My only concern is people are looking at your resume and saying "this guy spent (about) less than a year at his first two jobs, there must be something wrong with him". Perhaps you could look to get in front of that subtlely in your cover letters though. Going heavy emphasis on the _acquired_ bit could help. People will understand this happens with acquisitions through no fault of your own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's extremely slow for hiring over the holidays.

If you think grinding LeetCode would help, do it.

I would also suggest networking. Find whatever meetups are going on and attend and just talk to people. If there is a conference that is relevant volunteer and that gets your foot in the door. Also don't be afraid to ask friends for help they might be able to get you introduced to people that are looking to hire.

</comment><comment><USER8> First, give yourself some credit. You have some good experience with interesting languages and 2 more years of it than I typically see. Nobody in this industry has any idea how to hire.

Second, have you asked for and/or received any feedback from these rejections? They typically tell you why they decided to pass on you.

<comment><AUTHOR> The only feedback I have been given (if I get any response after asking) has been "we were looking for someone more senior". And an instance where I was asked to "implement a JSON parser" in 20 minutes where the interviewers feedback was "solution was not complete enough". I'm not sure if I don't sound like I know what I'm talking about or if my algo experience is lackluster? I've also been careful to not focus too much explaining my exit from FAANG.

<comment><USER8> I'd consider writing a json parser in 20 min a tough challenge for anyone. Also being good at algos is not the only way to get hired. I for one am terrible at them and mostly do fine in interviews :)

The most important thing I've found to getting hired is to have your "story" down pat. Every time you are in an interview and you get asked a question you don't have a good answer for, make a note of it. When you get home sit down and compose an answer to that question in writing. Rehearse it. Repeat.

As for tech challenges, the number one most important thing to remember is they want to see how you think. They also want to see how you react under stress. No matter how tough or unreasonable the challenge is. Just take a deep breath and try. You'd be shocked at how often that gets you points with the interviewer.

Finally, most junior roles I see are (for whatever reason) front end heavy. Your vue experience is great but it would give you more options if you added React to your tool belt. Dunno. Just a thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am about facing coding challenge from one of FAANG. I did a couple of CS algo courses in a good university some years back. I just don't know the shortest path to prepare for this ?

<comment><USER10> You're about to get destroyed if you haven't already spent at least 2 months reviewing material and practicing.

Just a fair word of warning. I don't mean to discourage you, but you can't expect to waltz in with no practice for these things.

<comment><USER9> Thanks ....that means that I should walk away .

<comment><USER10> Nah don't walk away. Do it, and get the experience so you know what to expect next time. You've already scheduled it!

I would hate for my previous comment to have discouraged you from even trying. If it's a simple online coding challenge, it might be pretty straightforward. It's the in-person round of interviews that you really need some solid prep for.

<comment><USER9> Thanks.... It is online coding challenge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Firstly, get someone to review your resume. You should update your resume at least once a month. At two years of experience should yield good listings for resume. You can often find "resume-review" channels in Slack/Chatrooms associated with programming meetup groups.

At 2 years, you likely have a pretty bad/small professional network. If you want to leverage your network, reach out to people you worked with in university. Reach out to staff and faculty of the program that you had a good relationship with. I found that the system administrator had the most and most interesting connections.

Usually I see new engineers not applying to enough companies. Set a quota of applications to unique companies per week. I found 25 was good, but you may have a different tolerance. "I applied to google 20 times this week" DOES NOT COUNT as 20 applications, it counts as 1. Spend the first half of the week applying to positions that are interesting, and the second half catching up to your quota with whatever you are qualified for.

Remember that being "qualified" does not require 100% skills coverage. At the beginning of your career (and a university degree), you likely only need shallow exposure to ~ 50-75% of the listed skills / technologies. The longer you are in industry, the less overlap is required to land a job. (at 8 years I talked my way onto a job by starting my cover letter with 'I don't have any current overlap, but this is what I know and why I think what your doing is cool')

When you apply in this manner, it can be much harder to find enough companies to apply to. If you are not geographically bound, I strongly suggest watching conference talks that cover technology you are interested in. For every interesting speaker, record who employs them. Check them and similar companies to increase your search area.

Be aware, but less concerned about NDAs. As long as you don't share code, you are unlikely to violate them. Also if they couldn't afford to pay you then they likely cannot hire lawyer.

Practice white-boarding with people at meetups. Come with problems, and be ready to talk your way through solutions.

I have never used leetcode to asses a candidate, and don't see it as helpful. Light-Green github is a much stronger indicator of a good employee than any puzzle competition. Pick an interesting side project. If you have the resources to volunteer for a non-profit this can help keep you out of a sea without guidance/requirements. A good side project can help you control an interview. Add a section to your resume for side projects. You don't need to treat side projects as a full time commitments. These should be time-boxed to a certain number of hours a week.

Finally, always to postmortems. As long as you receive a first phone screen, the application qualifies for a postmortem. You should be changing your strategy, resume, cover-letter, and preparedness after every interview.</comment>


Ask HN: Best book structure - <AUTHOR> What is the best book structure you have ever read?<p>sidenote: we are talking about technical books. <comment><USER2> Well, it's hard to think of anything _radically_ unique. But some memorable things that come to mind:

\- the way Graham, Knuth & Patashnik's _Concrete Mathematics_ has the students' comments, silly or enlightening, in the margins. Its also very well designed and put together.

\- I absolutely love the design of Sedgewick & Wayne's _Algorithms_ (4th ed.) The fonts, colour palette, diagrams illustrating algorithms etc, are all miraculously awesome. The next algorithms book I looked at seemed so tedious and incompetent I wanted to complain.

\- I love raganwald's _JavaScript Allongé_ apart from the pictures. But there are pictures throughout of coffee, coffee machines, coffee bushes etc with coffee-related captions, all totally unrelated to the text, that somehow work, like a breath of fresh air through the book.

\- Needham's _Visual Complex Analysis_ is a marvel of clarity in word and picture.

\- _Eloquent Javascript_ (I read the online version[0]) is impressively well- designed. A good mix of covering-the-basics and projects. A clean, simple and beautiful form.

[0] [http://eloquentjavascript.net/](http://eloquentjavascript.net/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The book structure depends on your goals for the reader.

Books that are for teaching a skill to a beginner generally follow a project based approach. You start with a basic concept and have the reader build a project. Then you go on to a more advanced topic and have the reader build a more advanced project. It would be great if each project built upon the previous ones. I think that is one reason why Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial is so popular: [https://www.railstutorial.org/book](https://www.railstutorial.org/book).

Then there are reference books. These are for experienced people to go back and relearn a concept they forgot. These books are great when organized with a clear table of contents for easily looking up topics. They don't need elaborate projects, but they do need examples to demonstrate the application of the concept. Something like the C++ reference would fall into this category: [http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/](http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/).

Hope that helps. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> Eloquent ruby was one of my favorite technical books to read. Short and concise(10-20 pages each) topic chapters with motivation opening, explanation of the subject and ending with a real world example from rails or ruby or some other opensource library.

The writing and clarity of explanation is the top quality I look for in technical writing though.

Edit... Looking at your past submission I would go with project based layout that focuses on one topic at a time but touches on the other topics as needed. With questions at the end of each chapter and project ideas / part lists for home exploration. Sounds like a fun project, good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm a huge fan of _Practical Typography_ by Matthew Butterick.

\- If you only read it linearly it gives you the most crucial points early up front.

\- It does an excellent job of linking between and to relevant sections. The most natural way to read the book is to read it _non-linearly_.

\- It balances depth and brevity.

[https://practicaltypography.com](https://practicaltypography.com)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's very dependent on what you're trying to explain. There's no one right answer. Do you have a specific goal in mind?

</comment><comment><USER7> POODR (Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby) by Sandi Metz is my favorite. Each idea in every chapter is backed up by a very specific example of refactoring. I can't really put a description on the type of structure, but I love the book structure.

</comment><comment><USER8> Jon Duckett: HTML/CSS

It's really beautiful, and a crazy visual way to learn how to design web pages. And it ramps up slowly and nicely enough for you to fully understand everything.

</comment><comment><USER9> GNU Emacs Manual...the printed version. Which reminds me to say that print is a book structure.</comment>


Ask HN: Remember FidoNet? - <AUTHOR> It was all the rage among techies from the late 80's to the mid 90's. In those days, the World Wide Web didn't exist and internet access was much too expensive for most. But BBS:es did and with those of them that were connected to FidoNet, you could participate in discussions (like UseNet) and send FidoNets equivalent of email.
Phone bills were a problem for anyone using BBS:es, so FidoNet's hierarchial system was based on geography to ensure its users would only have to make local phone calls to access it. For example, I was a user node connected to a local BBS which in turn was connected to South Net which in turn was connected to Region Sweden which in turn was connected to Zone Europe. Cost minimization was very important since it was all driven by hobbyists and no one got paid for it.
For me, it was the first time I networked. You could send FidoMail to people all around the world and they would get the mail in a few days. The delay in delivery was because of buffering; each node in the network would only pull and push mail from and to their upstream once or twice a day to save on phone bills.
But the discussions were the amazing part of the network. Being able to read and participate in discussions with very smart people was very fun. Most groups were computer-related, but other topics like ham radio, religion, politics, sex and science were discussed too. There must have been thousands of messages posted to the network everyday.
Anyways, I was trying to find the archives (spurred to it after reading https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2016/07/28/the-end-of-gmane/) but there are none! :( No one has bothered to archive FidoNet and now that piece of computing history is lost forever. All the thousands of messages I and many others wrote vanished in the aether.
Perhaps people have caches of messages from that era on their old hard drives? It would be so cool if it was possible to put together an archive of it! Perhaps not? Perhaps someday someone pulls the plug on Hacker News site and then everything written here will be lost too? <comment><USER2> I remember Fido. I briefly operated a dial-up BBS in the early 90's. Fido was a great way to have globe spanning discussions with other having similar interests.

There are some FidoNet archives floating around as torrents or as websites, too. There isn't an all inclusive repository, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. Do you have links to the torrents? I can't find them.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm a little saddened by the lack of responses. Maybe I'm getting older and a whole generation has grown up after me and doesn't know about the "glory days". :) Perhaps FidoNet is completely dead at this point and there is no way to revive the old content.</comment>


Rate my Web App: www.perqworks.com - <AUTHOR>

For companies who provide paid time off ("PTO") as an employee benefit, Perq helps create company policy and tracks vacation, sick, and other time away from the office.<p>Designed and written by a small team, Perq is a PHP application using the Symfony framework, Doctrine ORM, jQuery library, and Google Minify tool.
We are particularly proud of our UI/UX design. Perq is a product of Matter (www.matterco.com) and PRTCLR (www.prtclr.com). We are a design shop that believes we can create kick-a software.
Please view the application with the 'Three for Free' option. Right now we ask for a credit card number, even though the product is 100% free. We will be changing that soon.
Please critic. <comment><USER2> Clickable link: <http://www.perqworks.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the nicest looking webapps I've seen in awhile, although the hashing over the demo screenshots is a little confusing. Also the colors of the title bar in the screenshots.

One issue I forsee, is how does it integrate with other HR tools? If I already have a database of employees, is there some way to automatically import that, or tie into that database? Is there some way to provide SQL queries to pull people's names, start dates, etc? (Maybe none of that is really relevant for smaller businesses anyway.) Finally, is there a way to define leave policy by years of employment? So employees are under one policy the first year, another policy up to 5 years, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> My only suggestion is change how the price grows, you can add a few cents or dollars each extra user, because if I have 50 users I won't pay some more dollars to add the 51th.

Another suggestion is to reduce the price per extra user as it will growing like, the first 20 users costs 0,50 cents each the next 20 costs 35 cents each, this kind of thing.

It's just a suggestion, but the site is really very appealing to the eyes and the application looks like very intuitive.

Congrats!

<comment><USER5> Honestly, the startup I work for got into the Managing Subscriptions business with their product and it has its own bag of hassles. If I add a seat in the middle of the month, do you bill immediately and prorate it, or wait until the next billing cycle? And if you do bill immediately, what if I delete a user and then add two more, do you bill me (prorated) for the two users, or only the one extra "seat"?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't go that route, just that sometimes more straightforward is better, sometimes knowing that I have the Deluxe account and if I want to add the Downtown office I'll have to upgrade to the Premium account makes it easier to understand. _shrug_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> On the pricing plan, why does it say "Evaluation" for the 3 for free plan? Does that mean that the plan will expire or some functionality is limited?

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd take the "About Matter" section off the end. I have clients in the HRO space, and I tried to read it from their perspective, and the copy in that section is jarring.

Obviously, this is gorgeous compared to the other leave management apps that HRO companies have paid millions and millions to build or acquire.

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks nice - well layed out, well designed, well thought out.I didn't try it at the service level but if I was looking for this type of app I certainly would feel comfortable trying it. Good job

</comment><comment><USER9> I like the "perq" name... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PERQ>

<comment><AUTHOR> The name is a take on "perquisite". <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/perquisite>

A term that I never heard of until I started working on this project.

<comment><USER9> I imagined it had nothing to do with personal workstations... ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Beautiful site and the app looks great. Very friendly. Haven't had a chance to try it yet but will check it out later.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, another site that demonstrates our design work is www.janemonheitonline.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How about a demo link where we can try it without registration.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is high on our priorities. We first had to get the credit card integration working.

The Three-for-Free never charges your card, but I recognize the desire to not enter a credit card for a demo.

<comment><USER11> yeah, this one is a big one for me. stopped me dead in my tracks when i realized i have to give CC info for the 3 person trial.

Really, i just want to admire your design. the screen shots look great, and I want a closer look. Hopefully I'll learn a few things for the admin screens of my completely unrelated web app.</comment></comment></comment>


Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jurn.io/international-payments-freelancers/ <comment><USER4> FWIW, where possible, I advise having both a TransferWise account and a Revolut or Interactive Brokers account.

TransferWise is fantastic for receiving money. They have __local __bank accounts in USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD and PLN. However for sending money and converting money, their fees can really suck: for $10k USD - > EUR (EURUSD is one of the most liquid forex pairs), they charge 81 USD in fees, or %0.8. Even for local transfers (which should be free) they charge ~1 USD.

Revolut is kinda crap for receiving money (the only local accounts are EUR and GBP, the rest are GB IBANs) but sending and conversion are both free (conversion as long as the amount is <$6k/month). If you use it a lot, they have a ~$100/yr plan that gives you unlimited on both.

Interactive Brokers is literally useless for sending and receiving money (they only accept transactions to/from your own accounts) but they're fantastic for conversion. They process your orders directly against the forex market and charge ~1USD per trade for the kinds of trades we're talking about. The downside is that their minimum account balance is pretty high (~$6k IIRC) and they have a $10/month "inactivity" fee if your balance is below $100k and you generate <$10/month in commissions. That said, if you need a brokerage account anyway, their currency conversion is a great bonus.

And finally, Charles Schwab is great in the US. They charge minimal markup on deposits and withdrawals in foreign currencies (~0.5-1% depending on amount) and they have a debit visa card with no international transaction fees and Visa's exchange rate (~0.3% spread). They're not the best around but they're really great if you don't want to put your money in the hands of a less- regulated FinTech company that has minimal deposit guarantees.

<comment><USER5> The Interactive Brokers $10/month inactivity fee is (kinda) no more - <USER2> have a new product called IBKR Lite that has no minimum balance or maintenance fee, but still supports forex: [https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=45500](https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=45500)

<comment><USER4> True, and if you're in the US that might be a good choice. IBKR Lite is unfortunately US-only at the moment though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great post Jurn, thanks for participating in the effort against hidden exchange rate markups.

If you want to check for yourself how much you could save with TransferWise (or one of their competitors) vs banks or PayPal, we've built a comparison site for international money transfer: www.monito.com which compares live exchange rates and fees for any amount you'd like to transfer between two countries/currencies (e.g. US-Euro [https://www.monito.com/send-money/united- states/netherlands/...](https://www.monito.com/send-money/united- states/netherlands/usd/eur))

Our initial goal was to help migrants save money when they support family back home, but the tool can be used by businesses/freelancers/travellers as well.

Let me know if I can be of any help in the comments, we've become payment geeks over the years!

<comment><USER7> I wanted to provide you feedback as well as alert others reading these comments. Your site doesn't list anything other than Transferwise for transfers from India to USA, even though options like InstaRem and others exist. Based on this, I'm not sure how comprehensive your service is to compare providers for cross border transfers. I see you have InstaRem and others for some other currency combinations (including the inverse, sending money from USA to India).

<comment><USER6> Thanks for your feedback. Monito.com strives to list as many options as possible and be the most exhaustive source of information about international money transfer fees worldwide. However, we're not always able to access all data as no worldwide regulations require banks or money transfer services to be transparent about their fees and exchange rates (yet).

That being said, in the case of money transfers from India to the USA: InstaReM temporarily suspended money transfers from India last month. As soon as this is re-activated, they will once again appear in our comparison table on all supported corridors from India.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the prompt response with details. If I may bother you one more time, do you have XE in your list of providers? It provides money transfers for many currency pairs (probably not as broad as Transferwise or InstaRem).

<comment><USER6> Yes we do. For example, they're the only service we know offering digital money transfers from Mexico to the US: [https://www.monito.com/send- money/mexico/united-states/mxn/u...](https://www.monito.com/send- money/mexico/united-states/mxn/usd)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For CAD-USD exchanges, _Norbert 's gambit_ is a popular procedure:

> _Here's how you can use this ETF to exchange $10,000 Canadian:_

> _1\. Get a quote for DLR and calculate how many shares you can buy for > $10,000 Canadian._

> _2\. Place an order for that number of shares. The trade will settle in > Canadian dollars._

> _3\. Call your discount brokerage's customer service desk and ask them to > take your DLR shares and "journal them over" to the U.S. dollar side of your > account, where they should show up as DLR.U._

> _4\. Place an order to sell all of your DLR.U shares. The trade will settle > in U.S. dollars._

* [https://www.moneysense.ca/magazine-archive/norberts-gambit-a...](https://www.moneysense.ca/magazine-archive/norberts-gambit-a-better-way-to-buy-u-s-dollars/)

* [https://www.finiki.org/wiki/Norbert%27s_gambit](https://www.finiki.org/wiki/Norbert%27s_gambit)

* [https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2013/12/03/norberts-gambit-t...](https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2013/12/03/norberts-gambit-the-complete-guide/)

Technically this would work with any interlisted stock, though the DLR ETF is very popular for this because of its liquidity. One could probably find stocks for GBP and EUR as well:

* [https://www.tmxmoney.com/en/research/interlisted.html](https://www.tmxmoney.com/en/research/interlisted.html)

The overhead of the exchange is the cost of buying/selling the stock, which is fixed price, so it it's not like a percentage cut.

<comment><USER9> Depending on where you live this could make your tax declaration more complicated, which could require the services of a tax consultant if you don't know how to do it yourself... Just something to keep in mind if you want to save money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a former TransferWise employee and I cannot speak more highly of them. Yes, they aim to make money like every business, but I've never seen a company so focused on transparency to customers. The CEO intensely interrogates roadmaps from the customer perspective, and fairness to customers is non- negotiable.

Their economy of scale enables them to offer increasingly lower fees, but I can speak first hand to the pain felt by everyone at the company when costs have to increase.

Anyway, I trust them far more than any bank and cannot recommend them more highly both as a customer and workplace.

<comment><USER11> Are you able to offer any insight (top level, non-confidential, obvs) into how TransferWise works, behind-the-scenes?

i.e. how do they actually enact the exchange of the funds? Do they have a contract with one of the big investment banks? Do they work directly via Forex markets? Can they leverage their scale now to minimise actual exchange costs – for example internally matching up (say) a one customer transferring USD to EUR, and another transferring EUR to USD, so that TW's costs are minimised?

<comment><USER12> In reality, internalised or not, TransferWise makes lot of money in fees. On InteractiveBrokers for example, you pay +/\- 2.33 USD in total to convert 100'000 USD to EUR (+ 1 USD extra for withdrawal if you already did one this month).

TransferWise charges end-user 900 USD + spread for the same operation, which is rather comical when you see their ads "banks are scamming you"

<comment><USER13> > On InteractiveBrokers for example

That is not a consumer-friendly site. Is it even practical for the typical case TransferWise targets: sending a few payments a year, or a few a month?

The pricing page for foreign exchange has the cheapest category as under $1 billion -- is transferring $200 something they'd do? I don't know what a "basis point" is, or "trade value".

[https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=4969](https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=4969)

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure where in the provided link you found that, but I am not doubting you found something FX-related in there with $1 billion as a relevant number, since they serve lots of different professional populations.

But yes, they can exchange even a dollar or two. I've exchanged five figures a few times there between CAD and USD, as an American living in Canada and actively using a US credit card.

So far I've found them to be much more affordable than TransferWise, but equally, they are a very complicated broker to use, and it may not be worth the hassle just for FX. They have other benefits that make them worth the tradeoff for me, like good margin interest rates and the ability to provide tax forms complying with both the US and Canadian tax systems each year.

<comment><USER15> Well this page says something about trading less than $1 billion per month:

[https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1590&p=fx](https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1590&p=fx)

<comment><USER14> Yeah, that's indeed the link that the other poster meant to share. See my reply to their comment parallel to yours for more detailed thoughts and numbers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am surprised that there is no mention of Bitcoin. My current project is also in another country (US) and I live in Europe. I am getting paid in BTC, and I pay even less then via Transferwise.

It is cheaper because the company already owns Bitcoin, so it doesn't need to buy them. What I do is:

\- Getting BTC transferred to a wallet at an exchange I trust \- Sell the BTC ones I receive them and put the money on my bank account

I switch between using Transferwise and BTC. The downsides are obviously that the price can fluctuate quite heavily. But my experience is that I saved a few hundred Euros each year (around 450 Euros) from using BTC instead of Transferwise.

That's not a lot in the grand scheme of things. What I like about a BTC transaction is that I can monitor it, it is even more transparent then Transferwise and I truly "own" the BTC ones sent.

It is a bit sad that I can't use it as much as I would like so I sell around 90% immediately to pay rent, buy stocks etc, and 10% stay there for future gains.

<comment><USER17> This has always been more of the dream of BTC than the reality. Transferring BTC around can cost 0.1 - 0.4% which becomes quite expensive. The cost of a wire transfer from Canada to the various countries I make them is a flat $36 - though receiving fees can be as high as $15 (CAD). That means that BTC only makes sense if you're transferring less than $5100.

But moreover, BTC back to fiat is significantly more expensive than "expensive" currency exchange with usually levels as high as 3%

<comment><USER18> The costs for transactions are not fixed to a percentage of the total amount sent but on the size of the transaction and the network congestion.

Moving one billion USD worth of BTC can cost as little as 0.065 BTC or ~440 USD.

[https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and- tech/ne...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and- tech/news/bitcoin-mystery-trade-cryptocurrency-market-transaction- blockchain-a9103611.html)

[https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/4410c8d14ff9f87ceeed1d65cb...](https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/4410c8d14ff9f87ceeed1d65cb58e7c7b2422b2d7529afc675208ce2ce09ed7d)

<comment><USER19> > _Moving one billion USD worth of BTC can cost as little as 0.065 BTC or ~440 > USD_

Which is ridiculous, given anyone (legally) moving a billion dollars pays zero for an instantaneous Fedwire.

<comment><USER18> Not familiar with Fedwire. Surely it won't be free to move fiat via any payment network.

Do you happen to have a source? PS: seems not to be available to retail customers?

<comment><USER20> The "Fedwire Funds Service" is the Federal Reserve's wire transfer payment system used to move USD. I'm actually writing an integration to it right this moment (the old fixed-width format, not the new XML one, yay). Naturally this interface is not available directly to retail customers, but if you actually send a wire transfer from your bank, this is the system you will use.

Your bank will generally make this available to you through some online interface. If not, you can visit the teller. They will likely charge you $20-$40 to send a wire if you are a small account, but, even with something like Chase's mid-level "Signature" checking (~$10-$20k minimum to avoid monthly fees iirc) they will waive this fee. And, of course, if you're really moving a billion, not only would you have a banking relationship where your wire fees are waived, that fee would be peanuts anyway.

<comment><USER18> Im in the EU and we don't have Fedwire here. I can tell you that ABN AMRO charges me ~10 euros for transferring ~200 eur to the UK (with conversion to GBP).

Generally speaking I'm quite familiar with payment infra in Europe, I've worked on it for ~20 years after all.

<comment><USER20> I am not sure how to engage with this reply. It is of course unsurprising that European banks do not have integrations with the Federal Reserve for moving USD. European banks often have access to international systems like SWIFT and SEPA, and various national payments systems, instead.

I have precious little information to offer you on the workings of European funds transfer services, however; I posted here to discuss Fedwire specifically, since you brought it up.

<comment><USER18> Well, first of all thank you for your earlier comment.

My anxiety is peaking lately... I have no idea exactly why I answered like that but what I meant was that while I'm not familiar with the US payment system, I do know the European one quite well and that's why earlier I'd expressed incredulity that any traditional banking system could offer zero cost transfers. I think I didn't notice you were not JumpCrisscross

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Most of them are not classified as banks and run without banking licenses > and governmental oversight. They are more convenient and cheaper but > definitely a little riskier as well.

This is really misleading. (Disclosure: I work for a remittance provider.)

It's true that non-bank money service businesses do not operate as banks, but it's totally false that they "run without... governmental oversight" or are "a little riskier."

The level of government oversight of non-bank MSB's is extreme by the standards of anything but banking. For example in the US, you have to apply to each state government individually for a license to send transfers from that state. It takes years and is extremely onerous. Many of our applications ran into the hundreds of pages of paperwork and were followed by weeks of on-site examinations plus an intensity of financial auditing usually reserved for companies nearing IPO.

(In Europe the situation is better because MSB regulation happens at the EU level. This regulatory difference is a big part of why Europe has a much larger share of great fintech startups compared to other sectors.)

On risk, most regulators require money transmitters to insure their liabilities to customers so that, if they ever collapse, the insurer will be able to make their customers whole. In our case, we never have liabilities to customers (because we pay out instantly) but we still have to buy this insurance... kind of a belt-and-suspenders approach.

</comment><comment><USER22> I was looking into this when I started freelancing on UpWork. I found that the best option for me was to have an US ACH account through TransferWise, otherwise I was looking at either high transfer fees, currency conversion fees or all of the above + a rate that is far off from the market rate.

With the current setup the only cost I have are the TransferWise fees for USD to EUR conversion when I send the money to my local bank.

<comment><USER23> You "lose" thousands of dollars per year on Upwork no matter what you do. But this is a non-issue in the end, am I right? That's why I used quotation, because I prefer having this loss on a high volume of work rather than work for pennies in my country and saving transaction fees.

In the end I don't care about these fees, it's the world we're living in and I prefer to have fun with my projects instead.

<comment><USER22> Instead of "loss" I consider it a service price for discoverability and the payment guarantees for hourly projects.

I also don't mind paying since so far it's been the best method to get projects for me so far.

<comment><USER24> Yes, the 20% definitely raises eyebrows. Uber charges 20%< Booking.com 15%, and Airbnb 5+10%, just to put a comparison.

I no longer use Upwork, and the "loss" is only one of the reasons. But it's probably the best way to find projects easily though.

<comment><USER23> Try going for long-term projects or creating relationship with your customers. Once you charge them more then 10k USD the rate is ~6%, which is quite nice to have 94 cents on a dollar. It's something Upwork actually encourages, opposite for Fiverr as example

<comment><USER24> If you reach 10K in payments, it means there's a good level of trust between two parties, at which point even the 5% charge is not necessary.

Their messaging and time tracking tools are mediocre at best, and they certainly aren't worth the 5% charge. Payments are held for a week, and it still costs money for the worker to withdraw them. Their local currency withdraw is 2-3% lower than Transferwise.

<comment><USER23> I have no problem using their messaging, it allows me and my clients to exchange information and upload files too.

The tracking tools is just as it should be. I don't want a keylogger, so the fact that they simply count keystrokes and mouse clicks is good enough to not step too much into privacy zone.

Payments are held for a week in order to allow the paying customer to analyze screenshots, and if necessary to allow for complaints to be filed.

As for local currency withdrawal, I'd say they don't make a dime on that one at all. That's completely based on your local bank currency exchange rate, which is always skewed for them to make a buck too. Also they have plenty of different payment methods. And in the end it doesn't even matter.

Care to share any better online market for freelancers that you're happy with instead Upwork?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I used to trade FX in my hedge fund, where of course we got interbank rates. The spread would have 5 decimal places for something like EURUSD, so 1.12345 bid, 1.12346 offered, based on mixed prices from different brokers.

I was astonished when I tried to change some money in the retail market and instead of the 5th decimal digit being different, it would be the 2nd.

Luckily these days there's several services that will give you something near the same spread, close enough to not care to search for improvements. Revolut does something like that, as does TW. I'm sure some of the other challenger banks are doing this as well.

Another big bonus is they don't force you to change your money. This is a big deal if you have an old bank like Barclays that will see your incoming USD and change it to GBP, losing you several percent in the process. If you have Revolut or TW you can actually just keep your USD, chances are there's something you pay for in dollars.

</comment><comment><USER26> I see lots of praise for TransferWise here and I regret not trying them out earlier.

For what it's worth, I can add my two cents regarding PayPal. From a customer experience perspective, PayPal is pretty great - the UI is smooth and I like being able to pay with my PayPal balance online.

Having said that, their fees are nothing short of exorbitant - <USER3> international transfers, if I'm not mistaken, the fee is 4.4% + a fixed price per transaction + 2.5% on top of that if you also want to exchange currencies. A $1,000 bill paid to my PayPal account by a U.S.-based client can easily become $930 or even less by the time it reaches my bank account. I've stopped accepting payments via PayPal for that reason.

Furthermore - this isn't personal experience, just word on the street - I hear PayPal Customer Service can be pretty atrocious to merchants, which is another thing I'm not too happy about when it comes to their service.

<comment><USER27> PayPal's customer service is atrocious to consumers as well, especially if you fall between the gaps and get asked to do some weird KYC.

Two months ago, they asked me to provide charity information for my personal account, and subsequently limited my receiving/sending privileges.

Phone calls to them trying to sort this out have always ended up at some call centre in the Philippines, where the agents can only tell their users that the account limitation is "for their safety".

They've also limited the personal account of a friend of mine (who was interestingly enough ex-PayPal) before, also asking for charity information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Over the last year or so it seems like TransferWise has rapidly come onto the scene & taken over much of the landscape for our international contractor payments. The fees tend to be much lower than existing alternatives; importantly, the administrative friction is incredibly low, too. We're able to handle international payments essentially the exact same way we do with most other vendor & contractor payments, via ACH transfers.

It's saved us a ton of time/hassle, even ignoring the fee savings (which have been somewhat substantial for _most_ countries & currencies).

<comment><USER29> > Over the last year or so it seems like TransferWise has rapidly come onto > the scene

They've also increased some of the fees over the last year

<comment><USER30> Depends on the currency. Mine has gone down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If anyone is interested, CurrencyFair are another excellent way to save money on international payments. Similar to Transferwise, you can send money fast from one currency to another at the current exchange rate with far less fees than a bank.

They also have a peer-to-peer element, where you can choose your own exchange rate and wait for another customer (sending money in the opposite direction) to accept that rate. If you are willing to wait a little longer to send your money, you can get excellent value using this feature.

They currently have an excellent sign up offer at the moment that you can access using my link: [https://www.currencyfair.com/rafland/?channel=RMZIY1](https://www.currencyfair.com/rafland/?channel=RMZIY1)

(Disclaimer: I currently work there. I love the product and I know you will too:))

<comment><USER5> +1 on recommending CurrencyFair - I've found that their fees tend to be lower than TransferWise and I've always had great service from them.

</comment></comment><comment> d--b I've been using TransferWise since it started. It's just the best. Cheapest fee by far, excellent support. No affiliation here: I'm just a happy customer.

<comment><USER32> I second this. Been using TransferWise for a while (few years?), a very satisfied customer.

Their onboarding and ease-of-use are phenomenal - even for senior people who are not technically literate. I recommend it to friends, family, clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've very high regards for TransferWise. Fastest and cheapest.

Meanwhile, Paypal is a frauster and should be mass-boycotted. So do Upwork.

<comment><USER34> Is it though? I recently compared it to Revolut (during a series of large-ish transfers), and TW turned out to be quite a bit more expensive, and no faster.

<comment><USER33> Revolut is not available to non-European and non-US citizens. I haven't tried it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I just used TransferWise for the first time last night. I was legitimately impressed with their well-designed UI/UX.

My bank doesn't even have an online interface for international wire transfers, plus, their UI looks like something developed in coldfusion by an ex-myspace engineer.

<comment> why-el TransferWise customer for over 5 years now, they are the best in the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Based on my own experience doing international transfer over many years, the article is pretty accurate. However there is another option, but it does have more risk. Bitcoin. I'm not much of a fan of cryptocurrency in the first place. But international money transfers with low fees is the first real use that actually justifies Bitcoin for me. My credit union charges $20 for a wire transfer. And the transaction fees of my Bitcoin exchange in my target country are low. The risk is the one to two hour window that it takes to transfer the Bitcoin. If prices suddenly drop in that time, I could be in trouble.

<comment><USER37> Are stablecoins viable in the real world for this kind of use case? Anyone have any firsthand experience?

<comment><USER38> I live in Argentina and have been getting paid in Dai (stablecoin on Ethereum) for over 2 years.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHji4x5C1q0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHji4x5C1q0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Just to add a dissenting voice to the conversation, I recently attempted to transfer some money with transferwise and they refused just after I had uploaded all of my ID etc. In the end I went with worldremit and they were much easier to deal with. Slightly more expensive but I'd choose that over the hassle of tw.

<comment><USER40> To add another voice, I spent several weeks in Bulgaria unable to use my Transferwise "borderless" card in any shops (including all the major ones, like Lidl and DM).

The first few times Transferwise insisted it's a broken card reader, then a few calls and emails later it became the merchant's terminal that's at fault.

On some of the calls, Transferwise simply hung up on me when I didn't take "you should try it again" for an answer.

Finally after escalation it became the terminal's providing bank, which didn't recognize my Transferwise card number (issued in New Zealand).

Meanwhile other people used their Transferwise cards at the same locations mine failed. So I requested a European version of my Transferwise card but TW insisted that would break their contract with Mastercard or something.

3 or 4 weeks later, after I had already left Bulgaria, they emailed to update that my card would now be working.

Needless to say, I always travel with more than 1 provider's card with me, and this runaround from Transferwise is why.

<comment><USER41> Interesting, I had a similar issue with my NZ-issued TransferWise card, however it resolved itself in a few days. This was in Dubai airport & then across a few merchants in the UK, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> We at Toptal initially created TopTracker payments (we don't monetize on this product at all) to be the lowest form of payments for freelancers globally by partnering with Payoneer. Essentially, it's a fixed 2% transfer cost including FX, however TransferWise is often able to beat that.

We, and I'm sure other companies, would love to partner with TransferWise, however they've yet to create API's that allows for a product to work with their system effectively. Once they do so, this will be a game changer for doing payroll globally.

<comment><USER43> Really?

A lot (most?) of the fintechs in the UK/EU seem to use TransferWise under the covers for their foreign currency exchange, and while I haven't used the api itself yet I have skimmed the docs for it and they seem detailed enough.

They (intentionally, afaict) don't provide a checkout flow, but there's still a lot there.

<comment><USER42> For doing payroll like transfers, especially with strong compliance, there's a lot of under the hood functionality required. Payoneer has spent over a decade creating this, while TransferWise still has a long ways to go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Transferwise is cheap but Revolut is free. I pay the mid-market rate and no markup unless I want to convert currency on weekends. There is a 6000€ conversion limit that can be lifted for 8€/month.

</comment><comment><USER45> I had a horrible experience with TransferWise. They silently canceled my account for suspected fraud after I'd sent my first transfer. No call, no emails, no questions. I didn't find out until days later when I went to check why my money hasn't been received yet - I was unable to login.

</comment><comment><USER46> I am receiving SWIFT payments each months in EU as a commercial entity. I am invoicing in USD, providing a bank account number, where the money I receive are automatically converted to the local currency (not EUR).

Just checked the exchange rate on TransferWise and it seems it is way better than any bank exchange rate in my country (not EUR).

So, what I am concerned about right now is taxes. It seems I can create an USD bank account in US on the name of my company for free. Then I can invoice my customers in USD (as I currently do) and tell them to pay the invoice to the US bank account in TransferWise. Then I transfer the USD to my local bank account (in local currency, using TransferWise exchange rate). So far so good.

But what about my USD bank account in US - wouldn't I need to pay taxes for my USD income in a US bank account?

<comment><USER47> Depends on the tax and accounting laws of your country, but generally the taxable event happens when you invoice.

So I'm doing accounting in EUR and invoice 10,000 USD. For accounting purposes my 10,000 USD gets converted to EUR on the invoice date, at the ECB USDEUR exchange rate.

Then you hold that 10,000 USD for 2 months in your USD account, and the USDEUR exchange rate has dropped or increased 10% in that period. When you then exchange the USD into EUR, you'll generally pay tax on the exchange difference (= capital gain)

My Belgian bank accounts are all multi currency. I can hold, receive and send USD/EUR (and others if I wanted to).

<comment><USER46> Thanks, the exchange difference indeed looks like capital gain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Depending on your situation (regulation and logistics), cryptocurrencies can be a good way to move money internationaly. I've used Bisq for that with success, though it's more involved than a simple KYC crypto exchange or the (usually costlier, right?) traditional banking methods.

</comment><comment><USER49> From Brazil, I've used TransferWise until it became _way_ more expensive than my regular bank to receive wire transfers.

</comment><comment><USER50> My wife runs a small research startup in the UK and their clients are almost exclusively based in the developing world (ranging from the likes of Kenya to South Sudan and Myanmar).

They are having difficulties receiving payments from many clients because: * They're a small company so many traditional banks aren't interested in banking them because they perceive risk to be too high (I guess from an AML standpoint?) * TW does not support receiving funds from these countries.

There just doesn't seem to exist a reliable way to receive money from many of these countries. Does anyone know of a solution or bank that offers this kind of service?

</comment><comment><USER51> His suggestions: 1\. use transferwise.com 2\. Open foreign currency account in your bank

</comment><comment><USER52> Using the opportunity to pressure TW to expand into more markets. Why only focus on the EEA countries? Come on, expand onto whole Europe/world, if Payoneer/Skrill can do it, you can too.

Edit: make debit cards available anywhere.

<comment><USER53> Coverage is pretty comprehensive [https://transferwise.com/](https://transferwise.com/) available in 59 countries (see half way down the home page)

The borderless bank account seems available in a ton of countires too - [https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/](https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> As a freelancer often working remotely: I have a great experience with Revolut Business.

From time to time I used TransferWise, and I am happy with the service. However, it is a transfer, not an account. For some contracts (universities in various places) a bank account is a must, so to fulfill local procedures. Revolut Business works like a bank account (including SWIFT transfer) with seamless exchanges between accounts. I created an account specifically to be paid in SGD (Singaporean dollar). If I used my "normal" bank account, the charges would be enormous (effective ~10%).

<comment><USER55> Transferwise now also provides a bank account with a proper IBAN and a Master card. I have been receiving my salary for the past six months in this account without issues. From last month, they also added Direct Debits feature. The only annoyance is that I can't use the Master card in many shops in Belgium because they only work with Bancontact cards.

<comment><USER54> Thank you for the update.

Last year it was not possible (and took me some time to discover that).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> If you have an online brokerage account, it can be possible to use that to exchange currency directly on the market, with the market exchange rate and very low fees. Obviously that isn't a one-step solution for clients paying you, but it can work very well if you have money in bank accounts in different countries, and they both integrate with your brokerage account in a low-fee way.

<comment><USER57> But how do you transfer between countries? The fees for wiring money or securities with brokers are higher than normal Bank transfers, at least where I live

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> FYI American worker: When an international employee makes $40 per hour and they perform two weeks of work -- their US employer sends them 80 * 40 = $3200. No Federal Income Tax Withholding, no Social Security and Medicare deductions, no Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax, no State withholdings, nothing. Employers love it. No drama.

Just straight gross cash.

<comment><USER59> Well, they likely need to pay income tax and social insurance in their own country. The burden has just been shifted to them.

To be fair, I'm not 100% sure how this works in the US, in PL where I'm from and probably in all of the EU countries if you are on a job contract then the employer pays the taxes and social insurance for you. If you are self-employed / freelance you have a business registered in your name and it's your responsibility.

Either way, I don't see how the taxman's cut disappears. Also lot of countries have higher taxes + social insurance than the US.

If you really want to make a case, you can say that the contractors from a low-cost-of-living countries may undercut American workers (but then, if they work remotely I think they mostly undercut the office jobs, not "workers") because they ask less money for the same.

<comment><USER28> Works pretty much the same in the US, too.

When we pay US contract labor, we generally send the "gross cash amount". The US contractor actually has to fill out a form upon commencement that says how their taxes & social insurance will be paid; at the end of the year they get a form from the businesses they did work for which shows total paid, and they use that to do their taxes.

Same thing for international contractors -- they just have to deal with their local jurisdiction's taxes, instead of the US IRS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Recent TransferWise horror story of a public company, processing millions, who had their account suddenly shutdown: [https://blog.simwood.com/2020/03/emergency-bank-details- chan...](https://blog.simwood.com/2020/03/emergency-bank-details-change/)

<comment><USER61> The TransferWise Acceptable Use Policy dated 24 July 2019 doesn't allow VOIP business to use TW. The blog post from SimWood is from 19th March 2020.

I'll leave it to TW to explain when they changed their AUP, how come SimWood s was able to use them later, and also for SimWood to explain how come they didn't track the AUP changes at TW, and instead felt the account closure to be sudden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I am the CEO of Routefusion (routefusion.co). While we don't handle individual international freelancer payments, we have the most comprehensive API for companies to send cross-border/international payments to contractors, or SMBs, etc. Based on my experience, here are some recommendations for whom I would use in no particular order.

Deel (letsdeel.com): They are an amazing option for paying and hiring freelancers/remote employees. They have a great feature where you can sign up as an individual contractor. They shine on their simplicity of onboarding and scheduling. They also offer a free consultation if you have tax questions etc.

Transferwise: They are great. If you are making individual payments you cannot go wrong. I wouldn't want to operate my payroll off of them, but they are great for one-off payments. (I used them to send payments to Italy for my wedding)

Pilot (pilot.co): Pilot makes it ridiculously easy to pay your international team members. They handle payroll, benefits, and compliance for international employees and contractors. They have some great tech behind their products, utilizing integrations like Plaid to get you up and running fast, they also beat TW in currency pricing all day.

Rippling (rippling.com) They have a great HR product and domestic payroll solution. They have recently launched an international payroll solution and it is just a great as their domestic.

Payoneer: Payoneer has been the industry standard for quite some time. I think the only downside is they are expensive (exchange rates are not competitive). Still would be a great option, but would not be my first option.

If you have any questions about moving money internationally, I would love to chat with you and answer them. Whether is helps Routefusion or not, more than happy to spread knowledge! :)

firstname.lastname@example.com [https://www.linkedin.com/in/coltonseal/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/coltonseal/)

<comment><USER63> I think you are missing the main point why so many prefer Payoneer. It's not about the fees, it's about having a card in a different country that your fiscal residency country.

<comment><USER62> Makes sense. They are a great company, so I imagine customers have lots of reasons for using them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> > As a remote freelancer you likely receive payments from other countries and > convert these different currencies into your own currency

I do, but only when I really need to, because my country's money isn't worth the nickel it is imprinted on and devaluates all the time, so I'd rather keep my savings at $$.

</comment><comment><USER65> I've been I've been using TransferWise and Revolut for GBP to Euro and vice- versa.

Revolut is the cheapest one and I can not understand the 50 euros charge as the exchange rate is super low.

Just checked my Revolt and 1000 USF to EUR is 1090,84, in google the exchange rate would bring me 1091,20. I don't get your 50 euros difference.

</comment><comment><USER66> Tangentially related: is there any payment gateway that allows one to accept international payments (for SAAS) paid out to transferwise accounts? I know paypal doesn't connect with TW. Is there any other gateway that does? Especially for Freelancers (not operating as a business).

</comment><comment><USER67> For travel, is there any benefit to using TransferWise's debit card over a traditional debit/credit card that advertises 0 foreign transaction fees?

I remember somewhere about how the conversion rates are dictated by Visa/Mastercard on most credit/debit cards. Wondering how those rates compare to TransferWise's, and if their extra fee on top is justified.

Some examples: [https://www.schwab.com/checking](https://www.schwab.com/checking) [https://creditcards.chase.com/rewards-credit- cards/sapphire/...](https://creditcards.chase.com/rewards-credit- cards/sapphire/preferred)

<comment><USER68> In Norway when a bank advertises 0 transaction fees they skip roughly 1.8% that Visa charges for doing currency exchanges.

<comment><USER69> Visa doesn't charge this fee, it's your bank.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> What is the secret sauce to TransferWise? Are banks greedy, or do they have access to an exchange market that nobody else does? I've avoided them because whenever I look up wire transfer fees I get their SEO'd blog posts, but it seems from this thread that they have a legitimately good product.

I use a local bank account for incoming wires so that, if there is a problem, I can go down to the bank and talk to someone in person instead of being subject to the customer service whims of a tech startup. For me, that's worth the $10/transfer fee (though I bill in USD so I don't see forex or origination fees).

<comment><USER71> The secret sauce is that TW doesn't actually do currency exchange.

They have their own pools of different currencies, and receive/disburse into/from those pools rather than selling/buying.

So if you send $100 to someone who will receive EU, TW doesn't actually change $100 into EU; they credit your $100 to their dollar pool, and pay the recipient from their EU pool. As long as the pool sizes remain well matched with the inflow/outflow in that currency, TW isn't actually having to deal with any currency conversion at all.

This is simultaneously similar to and utterly different from what banks have done for international transfers. The difference is that TW is free to take on the risk of the rates changing because the risk is reduced substantively.

<comment><USER70> That's really interesting!

They only support disbursements in six currencies (AUD, EUR, GBP, NZD, PLN, and USD), but they can accept eighteen currencies; presumably because they already have a large balance of those and they are relatively stable -- the one question mark for me would be PLN, but I would guess that it might be an important remote work market.

It seems the main difference is the lack of a requirement for an intermediate bank or banks; even a large international bank like HSBC might have to go through a third party for currency conversion in certain circumstances. It seems a lot easier if you are only making increases / decreases to your own balance sheet (cut out the middle man, no settlement requirements, etc).

Presumably you issue bonds to get the to do this with, which is relatively safe because it stays as cash and you know your churn rate. Does TransferWise have any levers they can pull besides halting disbursements in a given currency if there is a sudden devaluation, e.g. Poland goes bankrupt and PLN goes to zero?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I used TW for a real estate purchase. It was fine, although I sent the money in stages, because money-in-transit is not covered by any deposit protection scheme.

My understanding is this applies to all of the services operating in this space, not just TW.

But the suggestion that banks are more expensive is not necessarily correct. My new bank charges nothing at all for IBAN transfers to my old bank in another country. Money usually arrives next day, or sometimes same day if sent early enough. The exchange rate seems to be the interbank rate and not a consumer rate, so it's all very simple and cheap.

</comment><comment><USER73> Reminds me of the Kagi cheques I used to get via snail mail. Once I had a cheque of around 160 USD and got back less than half of it from my former bank, the Berliner Sparkasse. I went to the local branch and they kindly explained to me that every institution "in between" the "billing chain" for foreign cheques can siphon off an almost arbitrary transaction fee. I still think that was fraud.

Anyway, I opened an account at a US bank with branches in Germany and it cost me only the usual fee (which was still high, though). Nowadays I'm using Fastspring.

</comment><comment><USER74> I use TransferWise for me as a private person. However, For my company I recently needed to pay a USD invoice ~$3.000 to a vendor who couldn't accept a credit card.

I looked into setting up TransferWise for my company, but half way through the validation process I decided to check what my bank charged. ~$30 with the actual exchange rate, compared to about ~$14 for Transferwise.

I applaud TransferWise for taking it to the banks, but saving ~$16 on the occasional international transaction for me isn't worth explaining to my accountant a random debit from my account.

<comment><USER75> > ~$30 with the actual exchange rate, compared to about ~$14 for Transferwise

I have never seen this (TW user here too!) and I transfer money pretty often. Are you sure the exchange rate was the same? Because that's how they get you - a fairly minimal charge (your $30, or often "free") but then pad out the exchange rate in their favour, sometimes up to 5%(!)

Or maybe you just have a really excellent bank. None of mine even come close. Hell, I've used TW to move between currencies _in the same bank account_ because of the clip the fuckers wanted for the privilege of moving some numbers from column A to column B.

<comment><USER57> > I've used TW to move between currencies in the same bank account

How do you do this? Last I tried, TW didn't let me choose currencies (it used the default currency for the source/destination country)

<comment><USER75> It was SGD to USD and you're able to use SWIFT to any country for USD (so I just pointed it at the same Singapore bank). It was slightly more expensive but still less than DBS was going to charge.

It would definitely be nice if they opened that up a bit, plenty of countries these days can do multi-currencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> There are also accounting advantages to having fees explicitly charged, rather than baked into exchange rates. An explicit fee is something I can easily state as an expense for tax purposes.

</comment><comment><USER77> At least in Europe, SEPA payments are visible abroad the next day (at least according to my experience from transferring to Germany and London from Finland), so that's not too slow.

<comment><USER78> Where "next day" can mean 4 days later if you initiate the transfer on a Friday afternoon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> I have an account with an Italian bank that offers multicurrency accounts (EUR, USD, CHF, GBP + others not activated by default). If I change 1000 EUR to USD now I get 1089.90 USD, if I try to change 1089.90 USD to EUR I get 993.80 EUR, so it seems the spread is less than 10 base points, which seems to be pretty much in line with Transferwise.

Also, given that I actually have a part of my account in USD that means I can wait and change money when I need it rather than when I invoice.

</comment><comment><USER29> Interactive Brokers have quite low fx fees and ability to fund/withdraw in many currencies. Problem is it takes a while a to open an account and to clear funds.

</comment><comment><USER80> I came to the same conclusion (I use Upwork -> TW -> My local bank, instead of Upwork -> local bank, because even with lower transfer amounts upwork's rate is so bad)

Although I've noticed an increase in fees over the year or so with TW, especially now. Next time I'm withdrawing from upwork I'm gonna compare rate/fees and check whether TW gives me better outcome. (I feel it might be not true anymore)

</comment><comment><USER81> We've been doing this for 3 years and we sit within EUR, GBP and USD. Rather than doing immediate conversion I sit and wait for various rates to become profitable, im happy being in any of the 3 currencies and so usually oscillate between USD and GBP which has been very profitable in the last year making around 10% net over 3 transactions. Can highly recommend TransferWise.

</comment><comment><USER82> I tried to use TW to transfer from a client's UK bank account that was in USD, to my US bank account also in USD. I couldn't find a way to choose this in the estimator, so I contacted tech support. They replied that this was a scenario they didn't cover. I continue to get regular wires between the accounts, costs $25 in Interbank and my place charges an additional $10. ):

<comment><USER83> Might be cheaper for you to open a EUR account somewhere with low fees and do 2x transferwise than paying $35 per transfer

<comment><USER82> TW support told me they just don't support an account in another country that isn't in that country's native currency. Which seemed odd. This was about a year ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> TransferWise highly recommended. If you spend/receive money in multiple currencies, you can also track your money with Lunch Money app. Jen, founder was on the indie hackers podcast. I'm not affiliated with either service and i haven't used lunch money. I have had great experience using TransferWise for international payments

</comment><comment><USER85> I have overseas clients whose accounts payables are completely inflexible and insist upon mailing me paper checks. I'm using a forex broker at the moment who gets me mid-market plus about 1.2% to convert into USD.

Does anyone have a better way to receive paper checks that doesn't involve me establishing a bank account in the sending nation?

</comment><comment><USER86> A happy TW customer here, too. Had my card skimmed in Thailand. All money recovered without much hassle.

</comment><comment><USER87> An online payment of USD 150 generates USD 14 for the middlemen. Source: [https://docs.sendwithses.com/random-stuff/enemy-at-the- billi...](https://docs.sendwithses.com/random-stuff/enemy-at-the-billing- gates)

</comment><comment><USER68> TransferWise rocks. I save about 16 Euro on a transfer of 500 euros to Spanish bank from Norwegian krones. And it works within seconds. The saving comes mostly from fees that the Spanish bank charges to receive international payments.

</comment><comment><USER88> I've been using CurrencyFair for over a decade and they've always been great.

</comment><comment><USER89> I find TW amazing but it doesn't ship debit card to my country (due to my over complex government's legislation). Does anyone knows a bank (can be a fintech) that allows me to open an account all online?

<comment><USER90> Argentina? People have been recommending Payoneer (not a bank) or Dukascopy (online bank). As far as I know Payoneer still ships cards, I'm not sure about Dukascopy. You can open an account 100% online with both of them.

<comment><USER89> Thanks for your answer! The country is Brazil. Payoneer - fails to meet my needs because there's no direct way to deposit through a bank, even it's my own bank account. Ask someone else to deposit (by the billing service) every time I need is inviable. And it charges 1-3% per deposit by the costumer. So, I would end up paying that per deposit. Also, it's too hacky. Dukascopy – I'm researching this one, you give the best answer so far. Allow non-residents to open an account, some fees nonexistent (monthly, annually or inactivity), doesn't seem to be bureaucratic, the support seems good (even one for my native language is available), ship the card to my country, the bank seems really solid. Sounds really good. I'm finishing my review, looking for good and bad experiences of current uses and possible hidden fees. If you have anything to say about this bank, please, let me know too. :)

<comment><USER90> Sorry for replying a bit late, I'm new here and not getting notifications for replies is something I'm not used to. We have a similar problem with Payoneer, so many restrictions that it's very difficult to deposit to our banks so people go to Uruguay and use their ATMs to get cash or alternatively they use the Payoneer card to buy things. Unfortunately I have zero experience with Dukascopy, if you have a Reddit account you can try asking in /r/Argentina or /r/merval, some people there have accounts with that bank.

<comment><USER89> Yeah, the lack of notifications of hacker new is unsual. I did alot of research on Dukascopy, including on reddit. It seems that bank really fit my needs. Thank you very much for that suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> I live in Japan and first heard of TransferWise from a friend moving to the States, but since I became a contractor last year most of my international clients use it, and it's always just worked.

</comment><comment><USER92> Just use crypto.

</comment><comment><USER93> sometimes you will do better with a wire and access to your banks trading desk ( _not_ retail exchange. Assumes you can hold an account in senders currency , but worth checking.

</comment><comment><USER94> Just use remitly. The best rates I have found so far.

</comment><comment><USER95> Transferwise is great.

One feature, I liked was Exchange rates alerts.

</comment><comment><USER96> +1 Transferwise, great service! Happy customer.

<comment><USER97> +1 to Transferwise. I'm a happy customer too!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> tldr: guy compares stuff, says use transferwise.

<comment><USER99> .. and shares his affiliate link to transferwise at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> There is a simpler solution. Charge more money for your freelance work. Higher fees compound. Cost savings diminish. Even better higher fees select for better clients. Working for clients where profits depend on your cost savings is a race to the bottom. And when clients pay more you can afford to outsource the work of setting up cost savings processes instead of doing the work yourself. There's nothing wrong with saving money, but that's not the purpose of a business.

<comment><USER101> Yes, easy, just charge more! I wonder why doesn't everybody just do it? Because it's non-trivial, it involves risk and you might end up making _less_ money!

While cost saving has almost no risk. Here's a relevant piece of the article:

> But what if it's a 6-month project and instead of billing them 1000 per > month, you are billing them 10.000 per month?

> Now you could have saved €150 per month for 6 months, meaning you lost €900 > just on currency conversion on this project. Ouch!

> It could very well be that you can buy a brand new MacBook Pro every few > years with just the savings on your international payments.

A business is also not good if you just let money slip through your fingers.

<comment><USER100> Charging more is harder than shopping for ways to save money and less pleasurable than dreaming of new MacBooks. Yes there is risk. Mostly of rejection. And rejection is painful and saving money sounds like what a responsible adult does and charging more just because you can doesn't come with universal social approval. Your clients know this if they are hard negotiating on fees they are using that knowledge to their advantage.

The premise of the scenario is the freelancer is absorbing the risks of currency exchange. The client is not compensating the freelancer for the currency risk. The only way the freelancer gets compensated is by charging more or placing the risk on the client by requiring payment in the freelancer's local currency. Neither creates a dependency on a third party, their API's, business model, or terms of service. All of those are a distraction from doing the things that are the basis of the business.

<comment><USER101> > charging more just because you can

You can _try_ to charge more, but it's rarely obvious you will receive that extra money.

Currency risk is a cost of doing exports. Of course, sometimes it's also advantageous if your local currency is devaluing against the customer's currency.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What the new Microsoft logo could have been - <AUTHOR> http://www.minimallyminimal.com/2012/7/3/the-next-microsoft.html

<comment><USER2> Fantastic work. They should hire you to work at the highest levels of their marketing dept., stat.

</comment><comment><USER3> There was an exhaustive debate around this a while ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195208></comment>


NetBSD 9.0 Coming Soon with Arm64, Updated ZFS, HW-Accelerated Virtualization - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NetBSD-9.0-RC2-Released <comment><USER2> "NetBSD 9.0 is bringing with it support at long last for ARMv8/AArch64 64-bit ARM..."

Ironic that the BSD that's legendary for "running on a toaster" and whose slogan is "of course it runs NetBSD" is just now gaining support for these not-exactly-rare chips/architectures.

<comment><USER3> Hey, if you want netbsd to develop faster you can always donate to it. Edit- and if you have already: Awesome! I'm sure every bit helps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> NetBSD is a little weird, they have all these wonderful features and platforms, but I always had the feeling that things are implemented, almost never properly documented and rarely revisited in the future.

On NetBSD.org there is a link under documentation called: The guided. Neither ZFS nor NVMM seems to be documented. ZFS does have manual pages, but if you want to use NVMM you seem to be on your own.

There's a ton of interesting things in NetBSD, but you don't get the feeling that there's a coherent plan behind it all, like you do with both FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

<comment><USER5> It even can run as Xen dom0.

Well, that's software developer-led cowboy coding for you: prioritization based on weekend impulses rather than user-driven urgency. Also, the hobbyist and volunteer excuses don't fly because a professional effort with a saleprice of $0 has to compete with non-free and is subject to forking and loss of interest if it founders or stalls. Also, I don't think there are enough NetBSD devs. It's main users are some ISPs for network infrastructure IIRC.

BTW, FreeBSD doesn't even run usably on RPi4, it boots and that's about it. RPi3 support is somewhat better, but still worse than RPi2.

I hope all FOSS OSes, including Linux, get and stay organized and productive, but not heading toward a greater unbalanced power law distribution (pun unavoidable) monoculture where only Linux dominates, because then we're in real trouble.

<comment><USER6> Volunteers can only do so much. Money is a powerful motivator and hence Linux is head and shoulders above its brethren because it has vast corporate involvement. And it still can't compete with Windows (in terms of hardware support for desktops and workstations) which tells you how much the hardware and software industries are black boxes...

<comment><USER7> > Volunteers can only do so much.

Opinion: which is why I think the limited volunteer hours available for *BSD projects shouldn't be fragmented across NetBSD/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/DragonFly BSD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'll be giving this a try when it's out. How does the support and ecosystem compare to FreeBSD, and is there any armhf in sight, or technical challenges around adding it?

<comment><USER9> > How does the support and ecosystem compare to FreeBSD

Haven't used NetBSD much directly, but used pkgsrc (NetBSD ports) on dragonfly for several years before dragonfly switched back to running their own ports system.

The netbsd ports build system at that time was much cleaner (buildlink to ensure linking only to correct and explicitly managed libraries rather than 'whatever is in path') and the fact that there were pkgsrc 'release points' made it easier to have coherent/reproducible applications (not sure if things have changed on FreeBSD side). There were less ports, but generally most things were covered.

As for the OS side, not so sure (see dragonfly), but the times I have installed it seemed solid enough. Overall it feels more 'clean' whereas freebsd feels more 'cosy'. Not sure how to quantify that. The system build is cool because you can cross-build any system & toolchain, and this works even across OS's (e.g. build NetBSD/arm from linux)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> NetBSD 9.0 supporting aarch64 is nice, I believe there's support inbound for the Pinebook Pro[0] as well.

[0] [https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8659](https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8659)

</comment><comment><USER11> Does it allow ZFS on root?

<comment><USER12> Sadly no.. [https://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-9/NetBSD-9.0.html](https://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-9/NetBSD-9.0.html)

> Updated ZFS. This is the first release with ZFS usable for daily use, but > there is no support for booting from ZFS nor using ZFS as root filesystem > yet.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I still have a MIPS-based IBM z50 laptop I got in the late 90's or early 2000's. It runs NetBSD (albeit an ancient version).

</comment><comment> non-entity Also I think thos release will make UEFI installations easier on AMD64.

<comment><USER13> I recently, installed NetBSD 9RC1 onto a UEFI system. FWIW NetBSD 8.1 also installed onto that system.

<comment> non-entity Its supported UEFI, but with 8.1 I beleive you ahd tovmanually created the fi partition and such. I think the installer can handle that now</comment></comment></comment>


Basic income trial falls flat in Finland - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43866700?ocid=socialflow_twitter <comment><USER2> I wish this article had more on why basic income is being discontinued. Is it being ended simply for political reasons? Or did research show that basic income did not produce good results?

Y Combinator's basic income research is highlighted near the end of the article. It will be interesting to find out how it works out. [https://basicincome.ycr.org/our-plan/](https://basicincome.ycr.org/our-plan/)</comment>


The Curious Case of Mencius Moldbug - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/curtis_yarvin_booted_from_strange_loop_it_s_a_big_big_problem.single.html <comment><AUTHOR> This got five upvotes within a half hour or so, surely enough to have hit the front page. I can only assume that it's being held back by people flagging it, a reaction likely based on not much more than a knee-jerk reaction to the name "Mencius Moldbug" in the title. If they would only read the article, they would see that it's not only totally on-point, but also that there's deep irony in flagging it. It's the Hacker News equivalent of the heckler's veto—the very phenomenon decried in the article.</comment>


An analysis on AlphaStar's superhuman speed - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/ak3v4i/d_an_analysis_on_how_alphastars_superhuman_speed/ <comment><USER2> Besides superhuman speed, AlphaStar could see the whole map at once unlike the human player. After beating human 5-0, they had extra exhibition match with new version of AlphaStar that had cameral like vision where it had to look around, and AlphaStar lost that game.

AlphaStar has till way to go before it can beat top human in a fair match.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found this analysis by u/SoulDrivenOlives very interesting, so I thought that maybe here people would both find value in it and add in some of their thoughts. I recommend reading it all if you're interested in the recently displayed AlphaStar SC2 AI.</comment>


Future Programming with turtles in VR - <AUTHOR> http://elevr.com/portfolio/future-programming-interfaces/ <comment><USER2> visual is good but is it faster then keyboard coding? I think that just for fun.</comment>


A three-person startup with 0 revenue is better than Goldman Sachs - <AUTHOR> http://adgrok.com/why-founding-a-three-person-startup-with-zero-revenue-is-better-than-working-for-goldman-sachs

<comment><USER2> Substitute "two person" for "three person," and "JPM" for "Goldman Sachs," and you have my story. My experience wasn't nearly as negative as his was, and my role was slightly different: I was a trader, not a quant. But the startup life sure beats Wall Street, hands down.</comment>


What can you do with a PhD in CS besides become a professor? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/fzfxb/what_can_you_do_with_a_phd_in_cs_besides_be_a/

<comment><USER2> You can be Jim Clark, Danny Hillis or Eric Schmidt.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Clark>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Daniel_Hillis>

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoa. Eric Schmidt co-wrote lex? I had no idea he had that kind of programming pedigree.</comment></comment>


Thinnest silicon-chip wires refuse to go quantum  - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21333-thinnest-siliconchip-wires-refuse-to-go-quantum.html

<comment><USER2> > It could be bad news, though, for the super-fast quantum computers that are > hoped to come next.

It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like this is a very special property of phosphorous infused nanometer wide wires. It sounds like if you want quantum effects you could just, you know, not infuse the phosphorous. It's not like quantum theory has been disproven.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it bad news when quantum computing has bad news? I'm torn on the subject. There are lots of interesting problems that might be solved or at least drastically sped up by quantum computing, such as optimization problems in engineering. However, security, which we generally deem essential in everyday transactions, depends purely on a lower limit to the time it takes to factor a large prime using known technologies. Similar for other essentials, such as privacy and anonymity. Quantum computing would be good in some ways, but terribly bad in others.

<comment><USER4> >> the time it takes to factor a large prime using known technologies.

This is a common misconception (or perhaps common typo). Factoring large primes is trivial. It's those pesky composite numbers that are the product of two large primes that contribute to the strength of cryptography.

<comment><USER5> In fact, easy factorization is the _definition_ of a prime number. Given a prime number X, we know immediately that it has only two factors: 1 and X.</comment></comment></comment>


Phonebloks shows working prototype in new video - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KmewIC-eV4

<comment><USER2> I know Google is working on this, and they are very smart, but this modular phone idea seems so daft to me.

It seems to me the way forward is more efficient and integrated SOCs with as many functions as possible integrated on a single chip, to minimize cost and energy needs. The mass of complicated interconnects and all these interchangeable components seems like a path to inefficiency and waste to me.

PCs are composed of interconnected components, yet when I build a new PC every five years I don't recycle the parts from the old PC into the new one. I usually get all new parts.

There are advantages to having a modular system, but I think those advantages are less important in a mobile device where battery life is of paramount importance.</comment>